Hiding Place
by AngelMoon Girl
Summary: A severe fever brings Emma painful dreams of a childhood that could have been; meanwhile, a frantic Mary Margaret tries desperately to nurse her daughter back to health. 3 parts.
1. Part 1 of 3

Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time is the property of ABC and those nerdtastic twins Kitsis and Horowitz. Unfortunately I can't claim much more than the story idea itself, and even that is up for debate what with the countless fanfictions floating around out there also exploring the Snow/Emma dynamic. Well... here's my take.

Summary: A severe fever brings Emma painful dreams of a childhood that could have been; meanwhile, a frantic Mary Margaret tries desperately to nurse her daughter back to health. 3 parts.

* * *

**_"Hiding Place"_, by AngelMoon Girl**

* * *

_"Don't peek, Emma."_

_"I'm not peeking!" she squealed. But there was a slit between her fingers, and through them she could just barely spy the beautiful woman with long black hair, and her expression of playful skepticism._

_"Princesses don't lie. It's improper." She seemed to know everything; the world's secrets were her command. In fact, most things were. Because if Emma was a princess, well, that meant her seemingly omnipotent companion was the queen. Queen Snow White, fairest in all the land. But none of those titles meant much to the little girl. She just wanted to play hide and seek with the one person who loved her most... except maybe Daddy, of course. Her tiny digits slid back into place._

_"Okay, okay! I'm not looking, Mommy! Just let me count already!" Emma huffed. She could hear Snow chuckling as she began chanting numbers, but her mother's mirth slowly faded until only Emma's voice remained. The child opened her eyes when she realized that she was alone. Her breathing sounded loud in these opulent halls, the columns towering and tapestries billowy. There was something discomforting about the grandeur of it all, standing in the middle of this castle that seemed plucked from the pages of a fairytale, but Emma could not muster up the proper amount of fear when she knew her protector was lurking nearby. An excited giggle escaped her lips before she remembered that she was supposed to be being stealthy, so Emma slapped a hand over her mouth. It would be no good to ruin the fun before they'd even gotten started._

_She let her feet dance across the carpet in tiptoe, palms tracing the walls as the little princess took up her search. She jumped out at every corner, hoping to spook her unsuspecting mother, but Snow was a pro at this game. She had a knack for knowing where to go without being seen; always had. Emma recalled the stories she'd heard relayed often, of her parents' past. How living off the forest had been an adventure in hiding. It was sort of silly to think about her mother like that, though. Mommy certainly didn't _look_ like a bandit... but she sure knew how to conceal herself like one!_

_Emma decided it was time to expand, moving on to the next floor, but she upturned little more than dust in every room. The girl began to forget herself, bumping into furniture with reckless abandon. Her small and delicate features crinkled into what Daddy called her "Pinchy Emma Face", but she couldn't help it. Emma didn't like when her mother disappeared for too long._

_"Moooommy! Come out, come out, wherever you aaare!"_

_Her patience had waned, not that she kept much in supply. No, now Emma was beginning to get a little anxious. Mommy almost never kept her waiting this long. She'd stamp a foot or clap her hands or make _some_ sort of noise, teasing Emma toward her general direction. But everything was just... still. Like death._

_Emma shivered._

_"Mommy?"_

_Nothing. No hint that she was playing; no hint that she had ever even been there in the first place._

_But wait. That wasn't right. Snow White was always there, because she was Emma's Mommy! She loved Emma!_

_Emma's head began to ache. She didn't understand why strange thoughts were flitting their way in, messing with her perfect reality. Better to just find Mommy and ignore the sneaky whisperings, because she didn't at all want to hear what they were saying._

_Then something caught Emma's attention out the window, and her heart froze._

_Purple plumes engulfed the horizon, building against the sky's darkening canvas like some strange storm only a nightmare could dredge up. The air itself seemed to be fairly crackling and buzzing as it exuded electricity, and Emma could feel the hairs on her neck stand up. There was something very eerily familiar about those clouds, something niggling in the back of the girl's mind about curses and evil queens, but her growing terror overpowered all else. For a long moment she just stood there, paralyzed. Until she wasn't._

_The scream that had been burgeoning in the back of her throat broke free, and on the wings of its release came the return of feeling to the rest of her body. Emma started to run for sanctuary._

_Maybe if she yelled loud enough, Mommy would hear her, Mommy would find her, and Mommy would know -_

_Something was terribly wrong._

oOo

Mary Margaret hummed quietly to herself as she toweled down the dishes, but it was more a means of filling the apartment with white noise than any sign of contentment on her part.

It had been a grueling day, to say the least, and the source of most of her frustration could now be found napping a floor above.

"Took her long enough," the schoolteacher mumbled, with an exasperated toss of the head. She shook out a plate, scraping a few lone chicken bones into the garbage before starting in on the scrubbing. It was an endless cycle - wash, rinse, repeat - but Mary Margaret enjoyed the sensation of domesticity it brought her. Funny how something so mundane could make her feel so worthwhile. So... maternal.

God knows it was probably one of the few things she actually managed to get right, in the whole beautiful mess that was her motherhood.

The raven-haired woman born of a different world sighed. It was a tricky thing, being a mother. Grow the child, birth the child, teach it and nurture it until one day you've turned a helpless little baby into a fully functional adult. For most people the progression was slow and wonderful - unless you were Mary Margaret, who blinked and missed her squalling newborn's evolution into strikingly attractive, bitingly stubborn Emma Swan. For them, every day was an uphill battle... though Mary Margaret supposed that was to be expected, when said daughter had the unique advantage of being the same age as herself. It kind of put a wrench in things even at the best of times. Not to mention the fact that her roommate-turned-offspring had an annoying tendency to build twenty foot high walls around herself, but Mary Margaret was no mere human. She was also Snow White, survivor and princess all rolled into one, and if there was anything that amalgamation gave her, it was the boundless courage to _fight_ - tooth and nail - for those she loved.

So if Emma had walls, well, Mary Margaret had the chisel.

Though today she might as well have traded it in for a wrecking ball, or better yet a bulldozer.

Emma was notorious for suffering in silence; it was a flaw she hid well. Never wanting to be a burden, never wanting an excess of attention for fear of craving it too visibly, the headstrong blonde took it upon herself to handle every issue without aid. It was for these reasons exactly that Mary Margaret was not surprised when she figured out Emma had decided not to tell anyone about her cold symptoms that persisted until now, into something much more serious. Something that, worryingly enough, had wearied Mary Margaret's daughter down to the point where she no longer resisted the idea of bed rest.

And if there was one thing Emma Swan did not do, it was bed rest.

Mary Margaret faltered in her ministrations. She could not shake the foreboding sense of something being very very wrong, and it was then that she realized -

_The stifling silence._

That was it. That was the cause for alarm bells resounding in her head.

Emma sleeping? Why, that was hardly anything new. It should be lauded, in fact, given her current state of ill health. But Emma sleeping without a god-awful snore? _That_ was new. That was not a good sign.

Mary Margaret laid down her towel. Perhaps it was just the instinct to be overprotective that Emma seemed to bring out in her purely through the power of her existence, but the fair young twenty-eight year old couldn't resist the urge to check on _her_ infinitely more fair twenty-eight year old.

oOo

_Little Emma barreled down the castle byways, fear nearly choking her from the inside out. She could feel acutely the sweat pouring down her face, licking at her skin that was so, so hot. Was it summertime? She couldn't remember. The only thought in her mind was of purple - outrunning that scary, scary purple._

_She wondered where the safest place to hide might be. She wished Mommy would finally come out. If Mommy were here, she would want to be in her arms._

_There was no place safer._

oOo

Mary Margaret climbed the stairs slowly, trying to avoid the ones she knew creaked louder than others. Her ascension being the cautious and careful journey that it was, it gave her a few moments to question the necessity of this urge to hold vigil over her daughter. Emma was an adult, in every sense of the word. She knew how to take care of herself, if not always with the sort of "care" Mary Margaret wished she'd use. Or could give the girl, if Emma would let her. But that was the kicker -

If Emma enjoyed her coddling, she did so only briefly, before the walls went flying back up. The only time the cracks showed was when she was emotionally distraught.

"_Mommy_."

And... when sick?

The whimper was soft, and so fast it was almost a moan. Mary Margaret froze with one foot still airborne, all manner of logical thought flung out the window at that call; that one term of endearment she waited nine long months to hear... or more, if she were being honest with herself, for Emma was wanted far before her conception. But then came the curse, and all daydreams of giggled "Mommy"s from a cherub-cheeked princess were ripped away as surely as her baby. "Mom" was the closest she'd gotten, that one rushed time down in the mines with death nipping at their heels, and it had been gift enough. But this? This was a simultaneous ache of joy and pain; a little child's cry from a grown woman's lips. A taste of all that could have been.

Screw the creaky steps. Mary Margaret nearly jumped the last three in her haste toward the bedroom. If Emma wanted "Mommy", then Mommy she was going to get.

* * *

_**Part 1 of 3**_


	2. Part 2 of 3

_There it was, standing firm at the end of the long hallway like a lighthouse in the night. The door was cracked open just slightly, an invitation to enter. To Emma, it was almost as though her nursery were waiting for her._

_If she couldn't have the darkness of her mother's shoulder, well, she knew where the next best spot to burrow herself away from the world was._

oOo

Mary Margaret gathered her wits at Emma's doorway, her heart still thrumming with rapturous emotion.

Mommy. What a beautiful word, she thought. Funny how a simple moniker could hold such all-consuming power.

The schoolteacher hardly registered the weight of the wood beneath her fingers as she pushed into Emma's room, fairly glowing from the strength of her smile.

But one look at the state of her darling girl, and the smile faded.

Oh no.

Oh,_ no._

Emma had kicked all the blankets to the floor, and for good reason. Her skin beneath the flimsy large nightshirt was irritated and red, shining under the faint moonlight as sweat collected atop the flushed and exposed flesh. She moaned pleadingly in her sleep.

"M-M-Mommy, help me..."

Mary Margaret was there in an instant, soft hands smoothing back Emma's damp yellow hair and pressing at her forehead. She frowned, all previous delight being driven out to be replaced with a barely contained burst of panic.

"It's okay, Emma. I'm here. Mommy's here," she murmured, but it was not okay, not at all. Her daughter was _burning_ up, fever a veritable fire against Mary Margaret's cool fingers.

Oh no oh no oh no.

The small mother reeled back, brain becoming one great mile-a-minute blur as she tried to sift through the fear, the guilt, and relocate her trusty rationale. Where was that damn thermometer again...?

Her fingers scrambled across the nightstand until alighting upon the aforementioned object, thanking providence for Emma having placed it there this evening, "just in case". Just in case indeed!

Mary Margaret fairly held her breath as she wedged the thermometer between the sprawled out blonde's parched lips, then waited for the white stick's final judgment. With each uptick of temperature, her heart sank just a little bit further into her stomach.

99. 100. 101.

She should have checked on Emma sooner. _Why didn't she check on Emma sooner!?_

102. 103.

Emma wouldn't have been happy, but damn it, her happiness was not worth her health, and maybe they could have curbed this fever before it got to -

104. 104.3. 104.5. 104.6.

_She was such a horrible mother._

Mary Margaret choked back a sob as she watched the numbers vacillate, until -

104.7.

Emma had a fever of freaking 104.7 and never said a word.

"Oh, you stupid, stupid, precious child. You'll be the death of me yet," Mary Margaret growled through impending tears, grasping delicately at Emma's face and rubbing her thumbs across the woman's sodden cheeks. She had to do something for that fever. _Now_.

The fairytale princess turned schoolteacher rocketed up, her feet fleeing for the door, the hallway, the bathroom. She came to a skidding stop in front of the medicine cabinet, flinging the front mirror open and rummaging violently through the numerous cough suppressants and sleeping aids she and Emma had accrued over the last year. There was a distant and disconnected part of her that felt grateful for the fact that Henry wasn't here to witness his grandmother's devolution into meltdown. She knows it would have frightened him, and honestly, his attempts at help would have probably just gotten in the way. No, it is definitely a good thing that he decided to spend the night at Regina's.

But oh, how she wished Charming were here!

_Red. Red bottle. Where. Was. It!  
_

Mary Margaret swore loudly as her search provided no fruit. Then - right at the back - she found the Tylenol with a gasping sigh of relief.

Only to curse once more when she lifted it, the very empty bottle a very bad omen that things were about to get very, very difficult. That was the only fever reducer they'd had in the house. Without it, Emma's temperature would only continue to rise. Mary Margaret had spent enough time in a hospital to know that anything above 105 was flirting with brain damage, and Emma, her beloved Emma, was dangerously close to tempting fate.

The woman somehow managed to stumble downstairs without seriously injuring herself, despite feeling like her brain was in a stupor. She raced for the phone and dialed the numbers she long ago learned by heart.

Charming. Charming would know what to do.

She waited, listened, waited.

If Charming could get to a store, then she could monitor Emma until his return, and -

Dammit. Answering machine. She hung up and tried again, with the same results.

It would appear his phone was either off, or dead. Probably the latter, knowing her husband. He wouldn't willingly cut off communication with his family unless he was unaware of having done so, and Charming had a tendency - much like his daughter - to become so wrapped up in whatever he was doing that he forgot all else except the work at hand. The duties of a stand-in sheriff had to be attention consuming, but oh, oh, oh this was truly the _worst_ time for him to be unreachable!

She called back one last time just to briefly fill him in on the night's events, and when her shaky voice finally gave out, Mary Margaret laid down the receiver. She scrubbed at her face, her eyes. Was this always going to be her life? One big test, skewed the other way, nothing ever quite in her favor? The young mother grit her teeth. Well, two could play at that game! Mary Margaret was bound and determined not to lose her daughter, not ever again, and she'd be damned if some measly fever got the better of her.

It was time to take action, the old fashioned way. If this world's medicine was not available to her, then she'd have to resort to her old world's. The Enchanted Forest certainly didn't stock Tylenol, and people still found ways to treat their illnesses. If she could just remember _something_, some oft-used remedy to metaphorically pluck Emma from the raging waters -

Wait.

_Water_.

Mary Margaret's head shot up, immediately followed by her body as she sprung toward the stairs.

That was it!

oOo

_The hallway seemed to extend into forever the faster and the farther Emma ran. It was an inescapable tunnel and all she wanted was to be in that nursery; that safe place that could protect her where her parents couldn't._

_Dimly, she realized the carpet was beginning to feel a lot like hot coals._

_Ow._

oOo

"Emma... Emma, wake up."

The sickly twenty-eight year old moaned, but did not so much as twitch.

"Emma? Emma!"

Two frosted over blue eyes blinked dazedly up at the raven-haired schoolteacher, and Mary Margaret could tell her daughter was far from present as she helped her up into a sitting position, keeping her hands pinned to the girl's shoulders as if afraid that letting go would send the blonde toppling forward. Which probably, was a correct assumption. Emma's gaze was somewhere else completely.

"Emma, I need you to get out of bed for me. Do you think you can do that?"

Emma didn't answer; didn't even move for a few moments. Then she inclined her head in a sort of sideways nod, though it was more of a sleepy flop against her shoulder, and Mary Margaret nodded back. She hesitantly decided not to take her hands off Emma, and her foresight was rewarded when it appeared her daughter didn't actually possess strength enough to stand - the second her feet met carpet, she sagged like dead weight straight into her surprised mother. They sank together to the floor, Mary Margaret still holding tightly to her progeny.

She gasped as the full force of Emma's elevated body heat hit her.

oOo

___Emma's teetering journey toward the nursery, toward salvation, was cut short in one fell trip. She skidded across the carpet that burned with a startled cry._

___Ow, ow, OW! The heat radiated around her like she was ensconced in arms made of fire. This sensation was quickly accompanied by a _feeling of deja vu so strong it made the very walls seem as though they were closing in around the child. The sound of swordplay danced through her mind, angry metal on metal so earsplitting it made her head physically hurt. A man yelled.

_Daddy!?_

_____The pain behind Emma's temple intensified into an insatiable throb._

_____No, Daddy wasn't here, in the hallway outside her nursery. He wasn't._

_____But it felt like someone else was._

* * *

**_____Part 2 of 3_**


	3. Part 3 of 3

Mary Margaret exhaled a raspy, shuddering breath as she found herself - literally - holding her dear Emma's life in her hands. She knew these next few hours would be crucial; that if she didn't break this fever it would necessitate an emergency call to Whale... and Mary Margaret knew how much Emma despised hospitals. If she could spare her baby that pain, she would.

But there was no telling whether the old ways were going to prove beneficial in this new world, and so the frightened mother had to hope that for once, fortune would smile down on her. She released Emma only briefly in order to grab up the thermometer, then steeled herself for the trials ahead.

She watched her husband carry her daughter to salvation once, to a vessel that would ensure her survival. Surely twenty eight years later, she could have the courage to do the same.

"Alright, Emma. We can do this," Mary Margaret murmured, placing her hands underneath the blonde's armpits. "Ready, set... up!" She grunted loudly and somehow within herself, located the strength needed to pull her daughter up off the ground. They teetered for a moment - twenty eight years having given Mary Margaret's offspring a certain accumulation of weight the baby in her memories lacked - but whether by luck or sheer maternal power of will, the schoolteacher managed to maintain her footing. She hugged Emma to her body, shushing her when the delirious girl began to moan about their change in position.

"Don't worry, darling. I'm going to take care of everything," Mary Margaret promised.

"Hot," Emma choked.

"I know. I'm going to fix that. Don't worry," the raven-headed woman repeated. She shifted them slightly. "We're going to walk now. Try to walk with me, Emma."

Mary Margaret felt like she was encouraging a fussy two year old. It hurt to know she might have - no, _would have_ - talked like this to Emma, once upon a lost life ago. So very much would have been different - would have been better - had the curse never been enacted. But Mary Margaret could not bemoan her situation overmuch, because she was grateful for the second chance. There was no doubt in her mind that curse or no curse, Regina would've found a way to destroy her family. At least this way, they got to be together. They had each other, in a way no mother and daughter got to experience before.

So Emma was a little bit heavier than she should have been, and a little bit more onerous than the typical child of a twenty eight year old woman, but Mary Margaret soldiered on. She would half lead, half drag her sick progeny to the metaphorical wardrobe even if it killed her.

Which, Mary Margaret thought grimly, was a distinct possibility. Emma was definitely _not_ light as a baby, not anymore.

"Charming had it easy," she gasped in weak mirth.

oOo

_The hallway shuttered in and out of focus. Sometimes she was there, bunched up on the floor trying to wish away the pain; the heat. Sometimes it was dark, an all-consuming emptiness that brought with it a sense of comfort. And sometimes, she was somewhere else entirely, catching flashes of strange objects as they passed slowly by -_

_A nightstand. A window. A blurred picture frame. _

_The constant fluctuation of images rather made Emma feel as though she were on a ship, rocking back and forth... back and forth..._

oOo

Traversing that long hallway was no risible feat, and thinking back Mary Margaret wasn't quite sure _how_ she completed her journey. Emma was a blathering dead weight who could barely muster the cogency to place one foot in front of the other. But what mattered was that somehow, by some fluke of fate, they did reach their destination.

Mary Margaret took a few moments to catch her breath and revel in their success, Emma hanging off her shoulder like a rag doll. Then she grit her teeth together.

"I'm sorry for what comes next, sweetheart. I truly am. But it'll help, you'll see."

As one, the pair slipped past the bathroom's threshold and over to the white marble tub. Mary Margaret eased Emma down for precious seconds so she could flip on the shower and adjust the temperature to a tolerable lukewarm. Then, with finesse she never knew herself to be capable of, the snow-skinned mother whisked the sun-tressed child into the enclosed space with her.

oOo

_Back, forth. Back, forth._

_This wasn't so bad._

_It almost resembled... being cradled._

_She let herself float away on the sensation._

oOo

She wasn't bothered by being wet, even wet in her street clothes.

No, this wasn't so bad.

The water streamed down gently over the two as Mary Margaret cuddled Emma's head against her chest. She used her lower half as an anchor and allowed pure instinct to take over, guiding herself and Emma soothingly back, soothingly forward. It was a baby's comfort, the lullaby of a mother's body, but Mary Margaret felt no qualms for her actions tonight. Twenty eight seconds or twenty eight years, time did not change their relationship. Emma would always, always, always be her baby, and in honor of that fact Mary Margaret would always be whatever kind of mother her daughter needed.

And for the first time in their shared life, Emma had begged in a little voice for the Mommy she should have had, but never got to experience.

Until now.

Emma groaned, disturbing whatever peace Mary Margaret had managed to steal from this moment. She fumbled for the thermometer and slipped it beneath the woman's tongue, waiting - praying -

104.5.

Frustration huffed its way from the sodden schoolteacher's mouth. This was hardly helping. She knew what would, but it would be awful. For Emma _and_ herself, if she was going to be honest.

_Desperate times..._

"If you come to, you're really going to hate me," Mary Margaret said grimly, in part to Emma and in part to nobody in particular. She just needed to ease some of the tension suffocating her chest; to release an apology of sorts to any motherly deity listening. Surely this was one of the less savory aspects of caring for a child.

Mary Margaret reached up, cringed, then cranked the temperature dial.

_...call for desperate measures._

Her poor, poor neighbors.

oOo

_Emma shrieked. _

_The shock of the cold was like ripping a band aid off a fresh wound; she had not realized she had grown used to this hot world beneath her skin until it was too late._

_Her very being twisted and shifted; realities clashed and the hallway wasn't a hallway anymore - it was a tunnel._

_Or, maybe not a tunnel. But definitely some sort of dark canal with a light at the end. Blinding light and someone screaming; voices so very fraught with frenetic energy and... legs? Were those legs!?_

_There was a certain sense of pressure and then soft hands were moving all over Emma's impossibly cold body. She felt exposed and naked, vision blurry as figures shuffled around indistinctly in her peripherals. It made her sick, so she simply squeezed her eyes shut. Her teeth chattered and she began to cry from so many overwhelming sensations hitting her all at once._

_"Oh, oh, oh. Emma. Oh, my Emma." _

_That voice, that teary voice - why was it so familiar?_

_Her body was lifted and settled once more. Emma squirmed at the change in position, but it was warmer here, so she huddled closer to the source. Arms came up; they fiddled with a splotch of white until it was wrapped securely around her - a blanket. She was now nestled inside a blanket. Oh, thank goodness. It didn't prevent all of the cool air from sneaking in, but it was enough._

_The pad of a finger slid slowly down her profile. It felt so wonderfully stimulating that Emma was coaxed into opening her eyes again. The sight that greeted her was rather akin to the last piece of a puzzle chinking satisfyingly into place._

_The most beautiful woman, with long ebony curls and milky skin, leaned closer. She had eyes that beckoned one into their depths, green like a forest on a peaceful midsummer's eve. On her face between tear-tracked cheeks was the widest smile Emma had ever seen, and it only burgeoned as Emma and her shared that first visual connection._

_"You found us. You found us. Oh, Charming, just look at her!" she tittered._

_"She's perfect," another voice intoned, so much awe inflected in his statement. "Just like her mother."_

_Emma was curious about this Charming fellow - he sounded familiar too - but right now she only had eyes for the woman. She wanted to stare at her forever, drink her in and memorize her, and it seemed like the sentiment was reciprocated. But then there was a loud and frightening noise, and that set Emma bawling once more._

_"It's alright, Emma. I'm right here, calm down. It's alright."_

_Emma's body was swayed gingerly back and forth. Back to the ship?_

_"Mommy," the name slipped out. So that's who the fairest of all women was? "No. Nooo. I'm cold!"_

_"Hush, my baby. Hush, my Emma," Mommy was murmuring from above. She rocked just a little bit faster, and the child realized it was she who controlled Emma's movements. Part of her really liked that and part of her was embarrassed for the liking it so much.  
_

_"Mommy, Mommy, Mommy..." Emma sobbed. She was so, so scared - there was a whole other person inside her! It was like... a whole other Emma, and this Emma was aware of things that were to pass. An Emma who knew she was going to lose her beloved Mommy even though she only just got to meet her. "Nooooo!"_

oOo

"Nooooo!"

"Hush, Emma, hush - it's working! Sweetheart, it's working!" Mary Margaret laughed wildly in disbelief, holding up the thermometer triumphantly with its blinking result of 103.6. Her whole body was ablaze with the shakes, but whether that was from joy or the onset of hypothermia, Mary Margaret wasn't sure. Okay, okay, so it wasn't that cold. But oh, what she wouldn't give to be ensconced in a cocoon of blankets and Charming right about now!

oOo

_Emma woke up in the hallway again with a gasp. Purple smoke was seeping from every crack in all directions... it found her! A horrible witch cackled, her cacophonous mirth filling the castle with proof that she was about to win. Emma knew she had to get out, but the only way out was in - i__nto the wardrobe!_

_Emma hurried to her feet and scurried across the carpeting, into the nursery, past the crib and the stuffed animals she couldn't ever remember playing with..._

_There. There it was._

_Emma whooped in relief as she beelined for her wardrobe. She was already one slipper in when she saw a flash of purple, swirling and formulating over by the balcony. Her heart plummeted and the girl pushed herself all the way inside, slamming the wooden door shut. Her breaths came in gasps and she curled in on herself, the fetal position, hands over her ears and countenance buried in her lap._

_"Sweet child. You can't hide from me," a sickeningly honeyed voice purred from outside. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"_

_Emma could hear the witch who brought the curse entering her nursery, and she was gliding with determined footsteps right towards her._

_"Justgoawayjustgoawayjustgoawayjustgoaway," Emma begged breathlessly._

_"Emmaaaa... Emma, I know you're in there," the sorceress teased, knocking on the wardrobe. Emma may have been little but she could discern that the witch's tone was cruel behind the playful exterior._

_The knob began to spin and Emma began to tremble. She wished she could sink into the darkness. Slip away into another world and never be found by anyone - except Mommy._

_"Say goodbye, little princess. Your mommy can't save you this time!"_

_The wardrobe was flung open and Emma screamed._

_Then all was light._

oOo

"MOMMY!" Emma jerked like she'd been electrocuted, and it was all Mary Margaret could do to keep her daughter from flailing right out of the tub.

"Emma, Emma, Emma. Calm down! _Calm down_!"

The saturated blonde choked and spluttered, spewing nonsensical fears about "the witch" and "the wardrobe" until Mary Margaret drowned out her rambling with the reassurance that,

"It was just a dream, sweetheart. Just a bad dream."

Emma lay there for a couple minutes breathing, just breathing, and also trying almost painfully to process where she'd been and where she was.

Mary Margaret picked up on her confusion, so she explained slowly, "You've been out of it for hours with a very high fever. We don't have medicine and this was the only way I could bring it down without taking you to the hospital." She smoothed Emma's hair back and the girl spit a few times as icy water collected in her mouth.

"I'm so cold," she complained piteously.

"I know," Mary Margaret assuaged. "Here, I think we're safe to do this now." She terminated the shower, and both women let loose tiny sighs of pleasure at the respite. Emma was looking sleepy again when Mary Margaret took her temperature.

"101. Oh, this is good news. This is very, very good news," she laughed, continuing, "Your fever keeps dropping like this, and I think we'll _both_ be able to rest a little easier until your father returns. He'll have Tylenol for you!"

"Mm."

"Emma, I'm gonna get some towels and then we'll put you back in bed, okay?"

"Mm."

"But you have to sit up so I can stand," Mary Margaret amended patiently, the barest edge of humor lurking in her tone.

Emma turned to smile quite blearily at her mother, their eerily similar faces almost nose to nose. "You know, you're prettier."

"Prettier than what?" Mary Margaret queried curiously, and she was startled when Emma patted her wet cheek.

"Prettier than Snow. The prettiest Snow. You're pretty, Mom."

And then she slumped back down against the schoolteacher's chest with a snore, leaving Mary Margaret with an incarnadine blush and no idea how to abscond from this tub and these damn cold clothes.

Not that she was in any rush, honestly. It wasn't every day she was called "pretty" or "Mom" or cutest yet "Mommy" by her twenty-eight year old daughter. Or slept on, for that matter. Try never.

_Just a few more minutes_, she promised herself, as the Enchanted Forest's former princess wrapped her arms tightly about her slumbering heir. Just a few more minutes and then she'd ensure Emma didn't get pneumonia on top of a fever. But for now, Mary Margaret was content to simply be Emma's mommy, hiding away from the world in their own personal wardrobe.

Or, tub. Whatever.

Charming was never going to let her live this down, was he?

* * *

**_Part 3 of 3_**

**Author's Note: Oy vey. I'm sorry this chapter was so much more of a wait than the others. Long story short, the karma from writing this story came back to bite me in the butt, and I was very sick with believe it or not, a strain of Hepatitis A and a 102 fever that hung on for nearly a week. Talk about misery. I feel horribly now for having put Emma through that, haha.**

**Reviews are kindly appreciated. I'm blown away by the sheer number of favorites and follows since first uploading - y'all rock my socks!**


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